A/N: So this is the companion piece to Seven Years With Lily and it's all from Lily's perspective. It will take me a few days between each update to make sure stuff matches, but I hope y'all enjoy. If you have read Seven Years With Lily and find any discrepancies, please tell me and I will try to fix them.

Lily was so excited. Sev showed her how to get onto the platform and she stood there gawking at the red train that would take them to Hogwarts, her parents and her sister next to her, all four of them with their mouths hanging open.

Saying good-bye was sad – at least with her parents. Petunia seemed to be glad to be seeing the back of her, and that really hurt.

She was joined in her compartment by two loud boys and a slightly quieter one who just sat there and read. One boy had messy black hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. Another had slightly longer black hair and blue eyes so dark they were almost black. The quiet one had sandy brown hair and dark brown eyes. They ignored her and, after studying them for a few moments, she ignored them.

Sev found her after about an hour. The boy with the messy black hair quickly insulted him and she left. A shame, she thought on her way out. He's kind of cute.

The Sorting was so nerve-wracking, Lily thought she was going to throw up. She was petrified that she would be put in Gryffindor – where she had heard the messy hair boy talking about wanting to go – or that she wouldn't be Sorted at all.

The hat screamed Gryffindor – she looked at Severus apologetically before heading to that table. The boy with the long black hair – she vaguely remembered his name being Sirius something-or-other – scooted over and gestured for her to sit next to him. She could also see Messy Hair watching her from his place in the line. Instead, she sat with a group of girls who had already been Sorted.

Their names were Alice, Sarah, Addison, and Lynn, and they were all really nice to Lily, even though she was Muggleborn.

Sev was put into Slytherin – no surprise there, but she hoped they would have a lot of the same classes and that he would help her explore the castle like he promised.

The quiet boy from the train was named Remus Lupin and he was also put into Gryffindor. So was Messy Hair – James Potter was his name – and she scowled. Seven years with that rude boy. Oh, the joy.

Classes weren't that hard really. She was really good at Charms and decent at everything except Transfiguration. Professor Slughorn, the Potions master, took an instant liking to her, as did Professor Flitwick.

She and Sev still spent a lot of time together – they were best friends after all. She knew that their friendship surprised a lot of people – a Slytherin and a Gryffindor? But neither of them cared really.

The first few weeks passed by quickly and fairly peacefully – then Potter ruined it.

He and his little gang of friends had dubbed themselves 'the Marauders' (what an idiotic name for a group, she scoffed) and had taken it upon themselves to prank nearly everybody in the school – they especially seemed to have it out for her and Sev it seemed. Lily was shocked to find that Remus was a part of their little group – he had seemed to be far more sensible than that. Peter Pettigrew, a hopeless excuse for a wizard, was also a Marauder, although many people were stumped as to why. Black and Potter were clearly the ringleaders though.

Potter thought it was hilarious to bewitch her quill to bounce off her paper so she couldn't write a word. Black thought it was hilarious to charm a book into sticking itself to the back of Severus's head for an entire day. While Lily admired the magic they were doing – it was pretty advanced – she wished they would leave her alone.

And then there were the times that she could feel Potter staring at her in class or at lunch and, to be honest, it was a bit creepy. But if she was honest with herself, she knew that she and Sev could be handling it a little better – Lily could admit there were times when she was rude to Potter for no reason (at least, no reason at the moment) and Sev should leave the other Marauders alone; she knew he picked on Peter to provoke Potter.

Lily was alone at Christmas – Sev went back home, as did the other girls. Potter and Black stayed, but she ignored them whenever possible. It wasn't the best way to spend Christmas – she missed her parents and her sister terribly, although Petunia didn't seem to miss her. She had stopped writing a few weeks ago, and although her parents told her it was because she had made some friends and was really busy, Lily knew better.

Thankfully break was over fairly quickly, and then the rest of first year raced by. Lily threw herself into studying and as a result she was top of their year. The downside to this was that it gave Potter something else to pick on her about – he constantly called her a goody two-shoes, a nerd, and a whole host of other names along the same line. And on Valentine's Day he had the nerve to send her a heart – he didn't sign it, but he didn't have to. It was slightly confusing for her though – she knew Potter didn't like her like that because otherwise he would be a little nicer to her. She threw it into the fire before it could explode in her face or something – she was fairly sure he had jinxed it somehow.

Exams were upon them before she could blink, but she aced them all. Then, to her great disappointment, it was the end of June and they were all boarding the Hogwarts Express again. Lily wasn't looking forward to seeing Petunia again – things were still really strained between them, although Lily was desperately hoping that things would improve over the holiday.

Potter and his gang of Marauders didn't bother her or Sev on the train ride home thankfully. Nor did he approach her when they disembarked. She could feel him watching her with her family though – Sev even whispered in her ear as they hugged "That loser is staring at you again" before pulling away.

Lily sighed as she climbed into her parents' car. This was not going to be a fun summer. And while she loved Hogwarts, she was dreading having to suffer through the next six years with James Potter. How was she expected to survive?

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